Archive

ValueAct Capital and Silver Lake, which focuses on large-scale investments in technology-driven growth industries, will purchase 100 percent of the outstanding equity interests in Acxiom in an all-cash transaction valued at $3 billion, which includes the assumption of approximately $756 million of d...

Private equity heavyweight the Blackstone Group is taking another publicly traded software company private. It has announced it will purchase Alliance Data Systems for $7.8 billion, including the assumption of certain debt, or $81.75 per share in cash. That is a premium of 30 percent over the $62.96...

At its annual Insights business partner conference recently, Sage Software rolled out a new iteration of its SalesLogix application which, given the number of advancements the platform offers users, is deceptively numbered version 7.2. "I think the company undersold itself when it didn't call it ver...

211 is more than a mere convenience to callers seeking information about critical health and human services available in their communities; it can literally be a lifesaver. "The heightened threat of terrorism in the post-9/11 world and the increase in frequency of environmental emergencies has raise...

Oracle has entered the product lifecycle management niche with a flourish through its acquisition of best-of-breed vendor Agile Software. While there are other active PLM vendors, Agile offers a difficult-to-replicate line of products and functionality that address product innovation and the introdu...

Sage Software is having its annual Insights user meeting this week in Orlando, Fla., and I am filing this piece from there. More than 3,000 partner representatives are in attendance, which accounts for a broad array of products that include ACT!, SageCRM, SageCRM.com, and SalesLogix on the front-of...

Direct search, or direct navigation, occurs when a potential customer guesses a domain name and types it into his or her browser address bar. The domain name often corresponds to the type of product or service being sought. Direct search is responsible for less than 20 percent of the online connecti...

It has taken some time to assemble the ingredients, but the CRM industry is finally poised to deliver robust mobile offerings. If you think you've heard this before, that's because you have -- in 2004, in 2005 and, yes, last year as well. To be sure, there are mobile CRM apps available on the market...

Salesforce.com continues to carve its user base -- and prospective user base -- into finer and finer niches, which it then targets with new products. The rollout of the Cisco Unified CallConnector for Salesforce.com exemplifies that strategy. Salesforce.com introduced a contact center application w...

RightNow Technologies has introduced its third industry vertical and appears to be poised to introduce a fourth -- in Consumer Goods Products -- in the near future. Thus far, the company has focused on industry groups in which it has a strong expertise and a large number of clients, such as higher e...

Talisma has introduced a new version of CIM 8.0, its self-service suite. While this release includes numerous enhancements to the existing product lineup, it also offers something completely new for the suite: a proactive sales feature set that leverages reactive service capabilities introduced in e...

Microsoft officially staked a claim in the burgeoning business intelligence market at its first-ever conference devoted to the niche. Conference keynoter Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, ticked off the strides Redmond has taken thus far in preparation for its push into BI: It...

Kana has pushed into the professional services area with its acquisition of eVergance Partners a management consulting and systems integration firm. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be accretive to Kana for 2007 and is expected to close during the s...

Do we still need venture capitalists in the software industry? Sounds like a no-brainer, but the question also reflects the disruption that is taking place in enterprise software -- initiated by Salesforce.com and accelerated with its unveiling of a company incubator in San Mateo, Calif. For the re...

The most common and least understood marketing barrier facing outsourcing service providers is the absence of a strong brand. Most brands associated with IT and IT-enabled services companies are chosen on the basis of criteria relevant to where outsourcing firms are based, rather than where they int...